“I feel one of the most important responsibilities of being regional chair is to be a conduit between party leadership and its membership, while at the same time always working in the best interest of the party,” Lack said in his speech to be voted in as regional chair. He could not be reached for comment, but said in a speech in advance of his election, “I’m proud of the fact that I challenged party leadership when I felt the party was going in the wrong direction.”
Before he was nominated Lack said it is Central Committee chair Judy Shelton and Executive Committee chair Todd Hall’s prerogative “to divide this party up however they want, whether we think it’s a bad idea or not” and told the two chairs “you’re going to have to have a hard time selling unity” by this decision.
Shelton said at Monday night’s regional committee meeting said she and Hall decided for the sake of unity to only have one regional chair.
“In the interest in getting people back together and acting as a committee as a whole, Todd and I decided to just draw the line around the whole county. We want one region, a group of people where you all get along. Now, if it doesn’t work, it’s not written in stone. It can be changed later,” Shelton said.
She acknowledged that the change “will cause (some of) you to be unhappy,” but hoped her explanation would appease the dissatisfaction with the decision that is permitted according to the Butler County GOP’s bylaws.
It did not.
“Consolidation of power flies in the face of limited and small government,” said Central Committee member Rich Inman, who is also involved with the Fairfield Tea Party. “I don’t care how you draw the regions but the thing is by having small and limited regions you offer the opportunity in individual parts to have that representation by appointing people that represent them within those committees.”
Randy Stanifer, a Central Committee member from West Chester Twp., said he was also not “comfortable with” the consolidation.
“We want to disperse power, and that’s important,” said Stanifer. “(President Barack Obama) has tried for the sake of unity and getting things done to ignore Congress. Sometimes dissension isn’t entirely a bad thing. You want to put a ray of sunshine to see how it evolves.”
Stanifer agrees there is dissension in the Butler County Republican Party and “there is something that needs to be done,” but he believes there are better solutions.
Ann Becker, a former member of the Central Committee from West Chester Twp. and president of the Cincinnati Tea Party, said the conflict seen at the Butler County GOP meeting isn’t new.
“The battle between conservatives and more established Republicans has been happening for 100 years,” she said. “It happens over and over again. This is just another example of power being consolidated. I hope that the Republican Party of Butler County can go past this, but it will be a tough road to hoe.”
Central Committee First Vice Chair Don Carpenter, who had been a regional chair for six years, said while he “wasn’t too pleased” with the direction Shelton and Hall were heading, he believes it’s the right decision.
“The fact of the matter is that over time … the regional chairs started to drift into areas that were counterproductive to the success of our party as whole,” Carpenter said. “In fact, at times to me, it was as if there were seven little kingdoms in our party and the divisiveness and the factionism that developed seemed to do more harm than good.”
He said some factions of the GOP would support a candidate “purely based on where the candidate was from or what groups they were aligned with” and the complaining over the years has become “tiresome.”
“This reorganization should help us streamline our processes and eliminate some of the backbiting and pure hatefulness we had to deal with,” Carpenter said. “There are some members of this party that espouse smaller and limited government, and this reorganization accomplishes that. … It just got to (the point) that this seemed like the easiest way to unify our party and work together as a team, and I really believe that’s what our agenda is.”
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